True Potential (episode)
True Potential is the twelfth episode of the eighth season of LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: Masters of Friendship and the 126th overall. The title is a reference to how the Overlord earns his True Potential later on. The episode is based on LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu episode of the same name and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode, Marks for Effort. In this episode, the Cutie Mark Crusaders try to convince Twilight Sparkle to let them into the School of Friendship, even though it's clear they've already mastered the curriculum. Meanwhile, the resurrected Overlord came to release the Sons of the Overlord for revenge. Plot Recaps of last events/The CMCs watch The last events occurred on the last episode Dread on Arrival. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were spying inside the School of Friendship and sneaking around outside the School of Friendship classrooms. Bored with Miss Cheerilee's plain lessons at the Ponyville Schoolhouse, the fillies wish to take part in the more fun and exciting classes being taught by Twilight Sparkle and her friends, including cupcake sharing with Pinkie Pie, animal-frolicking with Fluttershy, and buckball with Applejack. During her lecture about Chancellor Puddinghead, Twilight notices Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo sitting amongst her students. She takes them into the hallway, where guidance counselor Starlight Glimmer briefly appears bored from having no students to counsel. Twilight refuses to let the Crusaders enroll at the School of Friendship because they already know all about friendship and regularly help ponies in need. Despite this, the Crusaders are determined to prove that they still have a lot to learn about friendship and deserve to be students at Twilight's school. To this end, Apple Bloom intentionally shirks her farm chores at Sweet Apple Acres, Sweetie Belle pesters Rarity with her constant begging at Carousel Boutique, and Scootaloo disguises herself as a student in Rainbow Dash's class. When these methods all fail, the Crusaders pretend to get into an argument in front of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, but this also fails when they accidentally stop pretending. ???? Two garbagemen collect trash from an alleyway, while listening to a news report on how the Sons of the Overlord have been jailed away in Kryptarium Prison. As they're finishing their work, they hear a deep, malevolent voice continuously say "she calls me." The figure suddenly reveals itself as the newly-resurrected Overlord, who hijacks the garbagemens' truck and invades the police station, where Harumi is being held for interrogation. The Overlord fights and defeats the guards, and frees Harumi. As the Ninja celebrate their victory against the Sons of the Overlord, Lloyd remains distraught over Harumi's betrayal. Misako urges him not to bury his goodness beneath a hard shell. Lloyd then stops the Ninjas' celebration, seeing a news report stating Harumi escaped—and the Overlord was the one who freed her. Lloyd is horrified by his grandfather's arch nemesis' resurrection, with many of the Ninja refusing to believe it. As the team heads to the police station, Misako takes baby Wu to Dareth's secret apartment to keep him safe. The Police Commissioner unsuccessfully tried getting through to the Overlord, but realized he's now an ultimate being of pure evil. The Overlord and Harumi break into Kryptarium Prison and allow its prisoners to take over, with Harumi introducing them to their worshipped dark lord. While training the Overlord, Harumi explains he has the element of not just Darkness, but also both Destruction and Creation. In order for the Overlord to unlock his True Potential, he'll have to destroy his only obstacle—Lloyd—who Harumi knows will come to face him. Helping Cozy Glow Back at their clubhouse, the Crusaders discuss different ideas for trying to get into the School of Friendship. Just then, they hear crying outside and notice a young filly in tears sitting next to a nearby tree. When they approach and ask what's wrong, the filly introduces herself as Cozy Glow and explains she is having trouble with her School of Friendship lessons, having just recently moved to Ponyville. The Crusaders offer to help Cozy Glow with her schoolwork, believing that doing so would be just as good as being in Twilight and her friends' classes. Cozy Glow's homework assignment is to do something nice for three ponies around town. With the Crusaders' assistance, she helps Bon Bon protect her face from the spines of a cactus she just purchased, gives color-coded sprinkle shakers to Mrs. Cake, and does Big McIntosh's chores for him so that he can spend time with Sugar Belle. Some time later, Cozy Glow meets the Crusaders outside the Ponyville Schoolhouse and excitedly announces that she got an "A" on her homework. Happy for Cozy Glow, the Crusaders wish to do more for her, and she mentions that she has a big friendship test at the end of the week. She asks the Crusaders for help studying, and the Crusaders eagerly agree. Over the course of the next several days, the Crusaders teach Cozy Glow about the values of friendship such as generosity, laughter, kindness, honesty, and loyalty by painting the Apple family barn, helping Fluttershy feed her animals, and retrieving Pipsqueak's kite. When classes are dismissed at the end of the week, however, Cozy Glow tearfully reveals to the Crusaders that she failed the test, and Twilight angrily calls the Crusaders to her office. Cozy Glow's intentions In Twilight's office, Twilight scolds the Crusaders—who Cozy Glow said were her tutors—for teaching her the wrong things about friendship and intentionally making her fail. The Crusaders insist they were teaching Cozy Glow all the right things, but Twilight shows them Cozy Glow's test paper with nothing but incorrect answers. Because of what she perceives as the Crusaders' cruel and spiteful prank, Twilight bans them from her school and from having any further communication with its students. As the Crusaders leave, Cozy Glow watches from afar in shock and regret. Cozy Glow goes to Starlight Glimmer in her office for advice. She reveals that she failed her test on purpose so that Twilight would see that the Crusaders are bad at friendship and allow them to attend the school. Starlight says that, despite Cozy Glow's actions, her intentions were pure, and she also mentions that the Crusaders would make better teachers than students. When Cozy Glow asks if there is a place for the Crusaders at the school after all, Starlight gets an idea. Honorary friendship graduates At the Ponyville Schoolhouse, the Crusaders and their classmates spend the day cleaning the classroom. As the Crusaders wonder how Cozy Glow failed her test and why Twilight blamed them for it, Starlight Glimmer suddenly enters and asks Cheerilee if she can pull them away from cleaning for something else. The Crusaders are once again called into Twilight's office at the School of Friendship, where the rest of the Mane Six also appear. The fillies fear even more scolding and punishment, but Twilight says they were summoned for a different reason. Cozy Glow admits to what she did and apologizes to the Crusaders for getting them in trouble. Because the Crusaders succeeded in teaching Cozy Glow about the values of friendship, Twilight and her friends give them honorary diplomas and declare them official School of Friendship graduates. As the Crusaders celebrate their own "graduation", Starlight Glimmer offers them positions at the school as friendship tutors, which they happily accept. As Twilight commends Starlight on her guidance counseling, the Crusaders leave to tutor more students in friendship, with Cozy Glow following close behind. On Destiny's Bounty 2.0, the Ninja discuss their plan of attack. Lloyd wants to face the Overlord, and ???? him as he did years earlier—but the Ninja advise against this. Sometime later, Nya discovers that the Bounty's navigation is frozen. Lloyd brings her to the rest of the team, claiming that P.I.X.A.L. has a plan. As they enter a room, Nya realizes Lloyd was lying; he locks them in the room and departs to face the Overlord alone, despite the Ninjas' pleas. He drives the Ninja Nightcrawler to Kryptarium Prison, while Cole uses his Earth Punch to break the Ninja free. The team makes contact with Lloyd, but he destroys his console in anger. Arriving at the prison, Lloyd calls out his father. In the control room, Harumi has Lloyd's confrontation broadcast across Ninjago. As Lloyd arrives in the main hall of the prison, he's met with the Overlord, with both remarking how the other has changed. The Overlord starts fighting Lloyd, even as he tries getting through to the dark lord. The fight is long and brutal, with Lloyd being heavily overwhelmed by the Overlord. Empowered by the fight, the Overlord starts to unlock his True Potential, and fires destructive energy blasts of darkness to cripple Lloyd. After being thrown into the prison's locker room, Lloyd puts up a final fight against the dark lord, but is thrown through numerous brick walls before flying out of the prison and onto the ground far below. All of Ninjago and the Ninja are horrified by Lloyd's defeat, as the dark lord watches him, satisfied. Harumi tells the Overlord to let Lloyd live, only so he can watch him take over Ninjago City as its new Emperor. As the Overlord and his new forces leave, Lloyd crawls a few inches before collapsing onto the sand. He weakly mutters "????," before a picture of him and his father is blown from his hand and away into the darkness. Cast *Applejack - Ashleigh Ball *Apple Bloom - Michelle Creber *Biker #1 - Paul Dobson *Biker #2 - Sam Vincent *Bon Bon - Andrea Libman *Boy - Kathleen Barr *Cole - Kirby Morrow *Cozy Glow - Sunni Westbrook *Dareth - Alan Marriott *Driver - Sam Vincent *Fluttershy - Andrea Libman *Gayle Gossip - Kelly Sheridan *Harumi - Britt McKillip *Injured Cop - Mark Oliver *Jay - Michael Adamthwaite *Kai - Vincent Tong *Killow - Garry Chalk *Lloyd Garmadon - Sam Vincent *Luke Cunningham - Michael Adamthwaite *Misako - Kathleen Barr *Mrs. Cake - Tabitha St. Germain *News Reporter - Michael Adamthwaite *Noble - Paul Dobson *Nya - Kelly Metzger *Ocellus - Devyn Dalton *Old Man - Michael Donovan *P.I.X.A.L. - Jennifer Hayward *Partner - Alan Marriott *Pinkie Pie - Andrea Libman *Princess Celestia - Nicole Oliver *Princess Luna - Tabitha St. Germain *Police Commissioner - Michael Donovan *Police Officer - Brent Miller *Rainbow Dash - Ashleigh Ball *Rarity - Tabitha St. Germain *Scootaloo - Madeleine Peters *Spike - Cathy Weseluck *Starlight Glimmer - Kelly Sheridan *Student 1 - Andrea Libman *Student 2 - Kelly Sheridan *Student 3 - Michelle Creber *Student 4 - Sunni Westbrook *Student 5 - Claire Corlett *Student 6 - Ashleigh Ball *Sweetie Belle - Claire Corlett *The Overlord - Scott McNeil *Twilight Sparkle - Tara Strong *Ultra Violet - Maggie Blue O'Hara *Wu - Paul Dobson, Caleb Skeris *Zane - Brent Miller Location Visited *Ninjago **Ninjago City ***Ninjago City Police Station **Sea of Sand ***Kryptarium Prison Differences between this episode, the original Ninjago episode and MLP episode "Marks for Effort" *The Ninja report to Celestia and Luna that the Overlord was indeed resurrected as they feared. *''Coming soon...'' *''Coming soon...'' *''Coming soon...'' *''Coming soon...'' *''Coming soon...'' Trivia *This is the second time the Ninja sing The Weekend Whip, the first is "Applebuck Season". This is also the fifth episode where Cole sings and the first time he doesn't sing Glow Worm. *While the Ninja were singing, Lloyd tells Dareth to stop the music at the exact same part the music stops in the music video for the "Weekend Whip." However, this could be a coincidence. *The scene where the Overlord rams a garbage truck into the police station is likely a reference to the movie The Terminator, when the T-800 rams a car into a police station. **According to Tommy Andreasen, this scene was originally intended to be much darker and intense, but was cut from the final scene. *The Sons of the Overlord appear to be the only prisoners in the "mean and dangerous population" in Kryptarium, where the Sky Pirates, the Giant Stone Warrior, and various other prisoners were previously held. *The beginning of the music where Lloyd goes rogue is similar to Ivan Drago's theme from Rocky IV *This is the second and last time Lloyd uses the Ninja Nightcrawler in Season 8. *When the Overlord confronts Lloyd, he remarks that he's changed, and Lloyd says the same to him. This is a possible homage to "A Moonly Takeover," when Garmadon is condemned to the Underworld. There, he is confronted by Samukai, who also remarks that Garmadon has changed. *Tommy Andreasen confirmed that during his struggle with the Overlord, Lloyd's element tried to protect him from the destructive energy shocks and possibly fatal injuries by the Overlord—hence why elemental energy bursts emanated from his body when he was hit by the shocks. *This is the third time Lloyd has been severely injured in the show. The first time was in "Return of the Overlord," while the second time was at the end of "Dead Man's Squall." *This is the first time an antagonist achieves their True Potential. Previously, the six Ninja found their True Potential in seasons one, two and five. In this episode, the Overlord finds his True Potential by brutally fighting and defeating Lloyd. *This is the last episode to have Cadance absent until "The Beginning of the End: Into the Breach". Gallery True_Potential_Title_Card.png|Title card